Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Langur dead in zoo with bullet hole

A grey langur died in Padmaja Naidu Zoological Park here on Saturday, with a hole in its chest and the airgun slug that embedded it deep in its flesh.

Zoo officials said the langur “may not have died because of the flesh wound” and that the incident was “only a mishap”, but questions are being raised about the security in the park, which houses the critically endangered snow leopard and red panda.

A source said an autopsy conducted on the primate suggests it died of internal haemorrhage, but could not determine how many days it lived after being injured.

“A guard on his morning rounds saw the langur, a seven-year-old female, pacing around in the enclosure that she shared with two other females and a male, around 8 am on Saturday,” the source said.

“Suspecting something wrong, he rang Siromani Sangden, the state in-charge of the zoo. But the monkey died before any help arrived.”

The caretakers, who feed the animals every morning and evening, said they never noticed the injured animal behaving strangely.